{History of Mapleton} Charles Leonard Whiting (1886-1961)

This is from The History of Mapleton, by Ralph K. Harmer and Wendell B. Johnson, on page 178-179.

Charles Whiting was the eighth of sixteen children born to Albert M. and Susannah Perry Whiting. He was born on January 21, 1886 at Mapleton. He was educated in the Little Red Schoolhouse and the North and Central schools through various stages of his childhood. When he was eight years old, he became a herd boy. He herded the cows for 2 ½ cents per cow. Charles and the other boys that herded with him would earn about 15 cents per day. They drove the cows to Ether Mountain, East of Mapleton, watched them during the day, and brought them back to town at dusk. During the day while the cows grazed, Charles and the other boys would play around the hills. Charles gained a love for the hills from these early experiences.

Charles farmed during the summers when he grew older. In his spare time he would go into the hills for timber. Spanish Fork, Hobble Creek, and Maple Canyons were very familiar to him, and her preferred being there than anywhere else.

When Charles was twelve years old he went to Little Diamond to work at a sawmill with his father. When Charles was fifteen, he went to Clear Creek with his Uncle Lon Fullmer where he worked in the timber for two summers, receiving $1.50 per day. At age sixteen he worked on the railroad at Cryden, up Weber Canyon. He was sent to Aspen, Wyoming to help repair a tunnel and there he became very ill, along with several other men, because of some bad water they drank. Charles had to return home.

In 1910 Charles went to work in a blacksmith shop in Winter Quarters, Carbon County, Utah. He married Olive Carleton on January 25, 1911 in the Salt Lake Temple. Charles and Olive lived in Winter Quarters for the rest of the winter and then moved back to Mapleton. Olive had been a resident of Mapleton since 1903. She was born May 1, 1891 at Bear Lake, Manistee, Michigan. She was the daughter of Franklin and Ellen Delilah Bourn Carleton. She was teaching school in Mapleton when she met Charles. When Charles and Olive moved back to Mapleton, they stayed with Charles’s mother for a short time and, later in the summer, they left for Clear Creek where Charles worked in the timber, getting out props for mines.

After the summer, Charles and Olive again returned to Mapleton. It wasn’t long before Charles purchased a piece of land on 300 West and had a home and blacksmith shop built. On November 27, 1911 their first child, Leonard, was born. They raised ten children in the home on 300 West, and Olive still resides there.

In the Spring of 1938 Charles was stricken with pneumonia, which led to an operation in the Payson Hospital. He suffered reoccurances and a year later was hospitalized in the Salt Lake L. D. S. Hospital. He spent a year there under the care of specialists. After several operations, he recovered his health and went to work at Geneva, then the Carbon County mines for two years. He was finally able to return to his timber work; the work he really enjoyed. He worked in the Utah timber for several years, and then he and Olive moved to Island Park, Idaho. He stayed in Idaho for five years working for South and Jones of Evanston, Wyoming. He was sent to Evanston to cut in the Uintahs in the summer of 1955. On August 16, 1955 he was struck by a falling tree and his leg was badly broken. He stayed in the hospital for three and one-half months and then traveled to Pittsburg, California, where he convalesced at the home of his daughter, Buelah, and her husband, Irel Barrus. After three months Charles and Olive returned to Mapleton. His timber career ended, Charles helped his son-in-law, Arland Cloward, in the woods by “bucking up” downed trees and trimming them. He also pruned local orchards, bossed ditch gangs, and did other work that he could. He passed away on May 15, 1961. Olive was called in 1961 to fulfill a stake mission for the Kolob Stake. She served in this capacity until 1964. She has been a Sunday School teacher for many years and many of her students have proclaimed her the best. She has done geneology for many years, sending many names to the temples. All ten of her and Charles’ children are married and busy raising families of their own. Charles and Olive have a large posterity.